Improving the Productivity through Site-Specific Nutrient Management in Cashew through a Mobile App in Coastal India

Abstract

Nutrient management plays a key role in the productivity and sustainability of land resources. Balanced application of mineral nutrition to the crops not only helps to realise increased yields but also to prevent land degradation. Cashew is generally grown as a rainfed crop in tropical regions with limited attention on nutrient management. Making an informed decision on the scientific aspects of the nutrient application in terms of the right amount, time and place of application are important for the growers. The mobile apps come handy in this direction because the farmers can themselves find out nutrient management schedule as per the field conditions. A mobile app for nutrient management in cashew was developed which takes care of varied field situations of farmers and was demonstrated in the farmer’s fields under participatory research mode. The app helped farmers to devise their own site-specific nutrient management. The field implementation for the site-specific nutrient management with the help of a mobile app showed improvement in soil and leaf nutrient status as well as the raw cashewnut yield. The yield improvement was in the range of 58 to 67% and the BC ratio was increased by 9 to 47% compared to the initial status. The mobile app DCR-Cashew Nutrient Manager was useful to empower the farmers, and field implementation was beneficial to improve the productivity, income and ecosystem sustainability by improving the nutrient balance in the soil.